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Stop asking photographers what flash power they used – it’s irrelevant

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It’s a question that’s often seen in photography groups. For some reason, people want to know all of the technical specs and exposure settings of every photo posted to those groups. In flash groups, people even want to know what flash power level you were at – as if it was actually a useful question to know the answer to.

Photographer Rob Hall sees this question all the time, so he’s decided to respond with a video. But this isn’t just a rant about why it’s a dumb question – well, not completely. Rob also tries to inject some knowledge to explain why the answer to the question is irrelevant and suggests some questions that you should be asking instead.

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Confused by lighting terms? Here’s what they all mean

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If you’re new to working with flash, especially when shooting portraits, all of the different terms for different lights can be quite confusing. With no context whatsoever, “key”, “fill”, “rim”, “kicker”, etc. are all kind of vague and non-descript. Once you understand the purpose for each, though, the naming convention becomes quite obvious.

In this video, photographer John Gress walks us through each of the different terms used for different types of lighting position, as well as how and why each of them are used when shooting portraits. He also mentions some of the names different photographers seem to use for the same thing – often a big cause of confusion judging by some of the posts I see on social media.

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Want to start shooting the Milky Way? Start here

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Photographing the Milky Way (and the night skies in general) is exciting and opens up a whole new world. But it’s also pretty tricky if you’re new to it. If you’d like to do it and you don’t know where to start, Steve Kazemir has just the video for you. He goes through all the basics of photographing the Milky Way, both for creating single images and a timelapse. So if you want to start somewhere, start by watching his video below.

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How to shoot cinematic footage with your smartphone without buying a whole bunch of accessories

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We’ve all seen the “Shot on iPhone” campaigns. Apple takes some Hollywood filmmaker, shoves some iPhones in their hand and lets them go create something epic. But as we’ve seen from the behind the scenes footage, they’re often using an entire production crew to help them make it, along with a lot of the same tools they use with “real cameras”.

But there’s a lot that you can do without having a couple of dozen people helping (handy, given the pandemic n’ all) and without having to buy a whole bunch of extra toys and tools to bolt onto your phone. In this video, Steve Write from Learn Online Video looks at using just a naked iPhone without any other devices to shoot your smartphone videos.

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A beginner’s guide to focus stacking in Photoshop

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Want to create perfectly focused and sharp macro and landscape images?

Here is a step-by-step guide on focus stacking, it will help you create perfectly sharp images.

The steps described in the article will help you to photograph images for focus stacking. It will also help you to apply focus stacking using adobe Photoshop.

So, let’s dive right in.

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Follow these filming tips to nail those difficult rain shots

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Filming in the rain is very tricky if you shoot in the natural rain and on a tight budget. But, it’s not impossible. Shutterstock Tutorials and Lewis McGregor bring you a bunch of useful tips that will help you to capture magnificent rain shots even when you’re shooting on a budget.

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Five beginner tips for getting started with shooting timelapse

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There are so many different ways you can apply timelapse techniques to speed up time and show the world at a different pace to that which we normally see in our daily lives that it can be difficult to know where to begin. There are all kinds of questions from gear to technique and there’s a lot of overwhelming information to deal with.

In this video, timelapse photographer Joe DiGiovanna, who’s currently in the process of shooting a 30-year-long timelapse of New York City goes through five of his top tips for getting started with timelapse photography.

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How to save space when updating photoshop

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If you are using photoshop for a while, you just have gone from Photoshop 2020 to Photoshop 2021. but if you are using Photoshop for a really long time, like me, you may even go back to Photoshop 2015. Or even CS6, who knows…

Here is the thing, each time that you update, photoshop keeps a copy of many of your options, settings, brushes, presets, and many more. Adobe is clever to not purge those folders when you update. Who knows, maybe a bug will force you to revert…

But, apparently, you can definitely throw away the older version and save quite a bit of space. (The same can be said for space-saving with Lightroom, I guess Adobe does not care about space when they push an update)

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Panasonic has just released a whole bunch of GH5 tutorial videos (huh?)

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Panasonic has just unleashed a torrent of educational and tutorial videos on YouTube for the Panasonic GH5. Although such content is never unwelcome, the timing is a little odd. Why release this content now when the GH5 has already been available to purchase for three and a half years?

To me, it means one of only two things. Either they’re getting ready to unload a new firmware that’s going to add a bunch of cool new features (RAW over HDMI?) and they think the camera will become popular again… Or, they’re trying to get it all out of the way now because they’re about to announce its successor; The Panasonic GH6. Of course, both of those assumptions could be wrong, too.

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